"We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell." -- Molly Ivins

Tuesday, October 31

Limbaugh and Michael J. Fox: the Backfire

Michael J. Fox is probably one of the most favorably viewed celebrities in the country. During his acting career, he was always seen as one of the nicest guys in Hollywood.

When his Parkinsons forced him to drop out of "Spin City," he left a popular show at the height of its publicity, doing so in a very public way. Since then, he's been a tireless advocate and has done so in a consistently respectful and charming fashion.

When Rush Limbaugh chose to mock him, he made a major error: it's easy to go after politicians. It's even easy to go after River Phoenix, shortly after his death, making snide comments about his drug addiction. Limbaugh's basic demographic is twofold: bullies and people who like to suck up to bullies. But he only has wider appeal at the sufferance of the broader public. Most people know he's a blowhard, but he's a blowhard who advocates for issues that a lot of people support, and he rarely crosses the line where he's going to lose support.

Attacking Chelsea Clinton (referring to her as the "White House Dog") was one time he went over that line. In that case, he immediately backed away from the statement.

In this case, he took his "apology" as an opportunity to slam Fox further, and made himself look to the rest of the public the way he looks to most of us left-wingers: like a hypocritical liar. In doing so, however, he helped raise the profile of Fox's campaign, made for -more- interviews with Fox, who repeatedly made his own comments not about Limbaugh but about the broader issue of stem-cell research.

Limbaugh thought he could go up against someone with real class and character when most of his experience involves going up against politicians. Clearly, he misjudged this one.

1 comment:

It is shocking that blow-hards like Limbaugh are still on national airwaves. If someone on the left made such ludcrious statments with no factual basis they would be removed immediately. Hopefully soon the whole American public will realize that they have been defrauded by these propogandists and other criminals.